Health

Our approach to Healthcare Architecture

Vilhelm Lauritzen Architects has been at the forefront of redefining healthcare architecture, emphasizing designs that promote healing, well-being, and community integration. Our approach to hospital design is rooted in the belief that architecture can transcend traditional boundaries between illness and health, creating environments that foster recovery and holistic well-being.

Patient-Centered Design

We prioritize patient well-being through thoughtful architectural choices. In the Steno Diabetes Center Copenhagen, the use of warm materials, strategic spatial planning, and abundant natural light contribute to a welcoming atmosphere. The facility is organized around a two-story garden with multiple courtyards and a public rooftop garden, promoting physical activity and providing therapeutic green spaces. This biophilic design approach not only aids in treatment but also serves as a preventive and educational tool, redefining the conventional hospital experience.

Functional Layouts and Flexibility

Efficiency and adaptability are key components of our healthcare projects. The New North Zealand Hospital features a clover-shaped plan that balances the need for a central garden with short internal connections, optimizing both patient and staff movement. This design ensures that frequently used departments are centrally located, while the separation of outpatient and inpatient flows enhances operational efficiency. Such layouts not only improve functionality but also allow for future adaptability in response to evolving medical practices.

Integration with Nature

A cornerstone of our healthcare design philosophy is the seamless integration of nature into medical facilities. Research indicates that exposure to green spaces can enhance patient recovery by reducing stress and improving mental health. In projects like the New North Zealand Hospital, the design incorporates expansive gardens and natural landscapes, ensuring that patients have continuous access to nature. The hospital's horizontal layout harmonizes with the Danish landscape, creating a serene environment conducive to healing.

Community Engagement

Our designs extend beyond patient care to serve the broader community. Healthcare facilities often include spaces for cultural events, social initiatives, and art exhibitions, transforming hospitals into community hubs. For instance, the New North Zealand Hospital is envisioned to host various community activities, fostering a sense of belonging and actively promoting health within the local area.

Emphasis on Well-being and Privacy

Recognizing the importance of privacy and personal space in patient recovery, we design hospitals with single-patient rooms, reducing stress and potentially accelerating healing. The incorporation of natural materials, such as wood, and access to daylight and garden views create a homely atmosphere, further enhancing patient comfort. These design elements are evident in both the New North Zealand Hospital and the Steno Diabetes Center Copenhagen, where the environment is meticulously crafted to support patient well-being.

Sustainability and Innovation

Sustainability is integral to our healthcare projects. Designs utilize energy-efficient systems and sustainable materials, reflecting a commitment to environmental responsibility. The Steno Diabetes Center Copenhagen, for example, features a biodiversity-rich rooftop garden that serves as a public space, enhancing urban ecology while providing educational opportunities about sustainable practices.

Wieselgrensplatsen Community Hospital

New North Zealand Hospital

There is more to life than being alive. Worldwide, hospitals often have traditional architectural similarities that induce a distinct institutional feel. Yet studies show that these traditional hospital settings can actually make healthy patients feel ill and weaken them physically and emotionally. With a budget of 600 million Euro, the design ambition for Herzog & de Meuron and Vilhelm Lauritzen Architects is to redefine the way we perceive a hospital and how we build it. It will break the boundary between illness and health, and provide wellbeing as opposed to mere treatment.

Studies show that the state of a bedridden patient separated from a healthy outside world can deteriorate mental and physical health.

These findings became the starting point for the project. Inspired by a 19th century sanatorium retreat, the key question is: how can we redefine the looks, feelings and functions of hospitals in society on a nature plot on the outskirts of Hillerød?

‘Livskraft’ (Danish for ‘vitality’) is the vision behind the New North Zealand Hospital by Herzog & de Meuron and Vilhelm Lauritzen Architects. The vision insists that there is more to life than being alive. The project breaks down the boundaries between sick and healthy, with the intent to provide wellbeing and not just healthcare. It also includes the outside world in a way that challenges the traditional and societal function of a hospital, and shifts the primary focus from merely treating illnesses to encouraging good health. Reducing stress is a crucial factor in a speedy recovery, and the design thus focuses on creating wellbeing and privacy for patients.

Hence, all rooms are single rooms that allow patients to experience less stress and an expected faster recovery. Similarly, wood is a recurring element in the hospital’s interior and facade. The soft shapes, daylight and view of the inner green garden create a more homely atmosphere and feeling, where nature is always present. Despite its monumental area of 118,000 square meters, the building and its organic shapes have been scaled to fit humans. In harmony with the surrounding natural landscape, it will offer homeliness and a sense of safety to everyone who visits the hospital.

The hospital building is horizontal, organically reaching out into the open Danish landscape. It is surrounded by a densely planted woodland and native meadows with a central garden. The low-rise building is a well-suited functional typology for a hospital – the low scale considers the convalescing human being – and the new hospital is designed to heal in tune with nature, as opposed to the tall hospitals of the past decades, with their functionalist language and large scale.

The hospital plan marries two contradictory needs: the desire for a large central garden and the necessity for short internal connections. The clover form is a product of the optimal placement of functions below the central garden, which sits just above the entry and is experienced from below and above simultaneously.

Viewed in section, the arrangement of the functions is simple; a table supported by columns separates two floors of examination and treatment rooms from two floors of wards above. Well-proportioned courtyards perforate the table, providing daylight, views and orientation. A central hall, stretching out between four large, curved courtyards, is the heart of the hospital. The section emphasizes the connection to the landscape, and functions on the ground floor have direct access and views towards the landscape beyond. The outer landscape space with paths and nature courses will offer a breathing space for stronger patients, visitors and staff.

The building’s functionality is not just limited to promoting good health and treatment. It will be a center for the surrounding community through cultural events, social initiatives and art, and actively generate health within the local area. The new hospital will be located at the center of the Favrholm Park that will offer hospital users and the community cycling and pedestrian paths, a cardio-route, playgrounds, art installations, as well as a hospital cafeteria and a terrace.

Psychiatric Hospital Slagelse

Slagelse Psychiatric Hospital is a professional beacon in the field of psychiatry in Region Zealand.

The hospital is located close to the somatic hospital. Together they form a new, cohesive health campus with shared use of access roads and adjacent parkland. The hospital is located in a large green area close to the sports areas, stadium, and recreational areas near Slagelse – east of the E20 motorway. The organic subdivision of the hospital with varying heights and building widths is integrated as a natural element in the landscape. The building opens up gradually to the outside environment, accompanying the transition from private to public zones in the hospital.

The hospital departments and patient unit are designed as clusters, which allow the landscape in, investing the areas between the wings with a garden-like feel. The cluster structure provides good functional and architectural opportunities for the expansion of the hospital. Wards and sheltered areas are angled towards the nearby quiet gardens, ensuring peace and security in the most private part of the hospital’s zones. The relationship between indoors and out is a key element in the entire building.

The focal point of the complex is ‘The Knowledge Centre’: a five-storey building housing offices, research, and teaching, a canteen, an auditorium, and outpatient facilities. The new hospital has a total of 194 beds, an emergency department, outpatient treatment and facilities for research and training.

You enter the hospital from Stadionvej across the forecourt. Visitors arrive at the main entrance and reception, which are closely linked to the emergency department. This is where the patients and relatives are split up into Forensic Psychiatry and General Psychiatry, the moment they enter.

The wards in the patient units and the common areas are mainly structured around a centrally located courtyard that serves as the unit’s identity-creating element.

Intelligent LED lighting is used throughout the building to recreate the natural colour changes of daylight in the course of the day. Together with generous amounts of natural daylight, this feature ensures the best possible lighting conditions for patients and staff.

The exterior of the buildings is made of brick and glass. The materials lend the overall complex a clear and unique architectural expression.

The artist Malene Landgreen and the author Ursula Andkjær Olsen were commissioned to create the decoration for some of the walls of the complex, using both colour compositions and poetry. The specific meaning of the snippets of text is expressed in single words or simple phrases, which address the tangible environment: for example, light, the gardens, and the actual architecture. The text helps to anchor patients in their surroundings.

The decoration of the glass partitions also has a very specific architectural function as a graphic element, which enhances the services the different areas of the hospital provide: particularly the different degrees of enclosure required in different contexts.

The project involved extensive cooperation with users, involving patients, relatives, and staff.

The hospital’s Knowledge Centre is DGNB Gold-Certified.

Health

Our approach to Healthcare Architecture

New North Zealand Hospital

Psychiatric Hospital Slagelse

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